Breathe

Keith quickly adjusted his hood, looked behind him to see if his tail was out, which it wasn't, and then did another, quicker breathing exercise. An anxiety attack was not something he wanted to face today.

Finally he looked up and reached out for the door handle. It was cold to the touch, the dull silver alloy sending shivers down his spine. It didn't help that he could see his reflection in it; he looked absolutely terrified. So he hurriedly schooled his expression into one of neutrality and turned down the handle and pulled, effectively opening the door.

He just hoped that the door wouldn't lead him to another few weeks of pain. If it did, he doubted it would even last that long.

~~~

Stepping in, he felt at least twenty five pairs of eyes on him - plus that was the general amount of people in each class from practically every school he had gone to.

They weren't glares and he couldn't hear any whispering so he looked up and around the room then stopped where he was - if he walked any further, he'd walk into Mr Smythe.

"This is Keith, he'll be new to our school so welcome him well, yes?" Speak of the devil.

Following up on his words, the class nodded and a few 'yup's and 'okay's were heard. Then Mr Smythe turned to him, his gaze softening into one of comfort and understanding.

"Would you like to say a few words to the class? Tell them a bit about yourself?"

Mutely, Keith nodded and rushed to think of something to say. In doing so, there was a pause before he spoke and unluckily for him, his voice cracked.

"Umm, I'm Keith... I'm half Korean and I have a brother called Shiro." With that, he faced Mr Smythe who gestured to a luckily available seat right where he wanted it and vaguely wondered if the teacher had asked someone to move for him.

~~~

Their first class with Mr Smythe was English, his preferred subject but Keith had already covered the materials they were studying in that lesson previously at home. With all the time off school being grounded and losing use of all gadgets as punishment, Keith found he had little to do but study.

And so, the boy found himself being expelled from school after school still with the highest grades in his year group each time. As he'd done it so much, studying had become habitual for him, and now he studied for hours each night. (I've made Keith a madman.)

~Time Skip brought to you by Keith's beautiful hair~

Break arrived but Keith, who at that moment had been staring out of the window at a flock of birds, was suddenly surrounded by other students all talking at once. The boy wasn't exactly social anyway, but being abruptly encircled by a large group of people created a sudden spike in his anxiety.

A cold sweat began over his body and he closed his fists tightly to hide their trembling, violet eyes wide and ears flattening atop his head. Had his tail been on show, it would have curled between his legs, further proving his fear.

Voices reached his ears as one horrific sound, too loud to decipher and grating painfully on his flattened ears them. He likened it to a fork scraping on a plate, it was that bad.

(I hate that sound.)

"Shut up!" A new voice joined the fray, a voice he recognised as his own. It overpowered the others, immediately creating a near suffocating silence. The air was heavy and the eyes of many in the surrounding group were downcast however a few revealed anger at him for his outburst.

"S-sorry." With that, he stood up swiftly and hurried away and out of the classroom. He didn't know where he was going to go, but he just needed to not be around people for a while; at least until his next class which was - he checked a clock as he was passing it - in sixty five minutes (break was twenty but he had a free period next and those people had wasted five minutes of his time before he got away).

As he ran down corridor after corridor, he got a few confused and some even concerned looks from the people he passed. Whilst he was running, he noticed his hood start to slip and so brought a hand on it quickly as to stop it from falling and revealing his secret.

~~~

Keith figures he'd been running for about seven minutes before he came across an empty classroom - or that's what he thought - and entered as fast as he could, tsinking to the floor with his back against the door as soon as he did. He tugged off his hood to let his ears 'breathe' and felt them twitch with every sound he heard, finally settling down in their resting position.

Just as he did with his ears, he let his tail go of the hold his magic had on it and watched it sway around for a bit before closing his eyes calmly.

That was until he heard a soft, "Holy shit." from across the room and his eyes flew open. He quickly (insert better adverb) leapt to his feet into a defensive position, his ears flattening on his head from both fear and anger and his tail standing straight and fluffed out, kind of like a cat's would.

His wide orbs found the source of that soft voice to be a tall, caramel skinned boy with the bluest eyes Keith had ever seen in his life.

If Keith was asked to describe them, he would say that they held the oceans themselves inside; oceans in the midst of a sunrise, the warm star creating tiny shimmers on the ocean surface, fabricating a glorious pool of cool light yet still holding that clear aqua hue.

Needless to say; they were captivating.

Stop his dark, chocolate brown hair lay slightly pointed ears on the smaller side and mixing his hair colour with that of a cool grey - a wolf's foundation grey.

Just the same, flickering and swaying quickly behind him was a short-ish wolf's tail fading into pure brown at the tip. It appeared sleek in shape but Keith could also see the rough texture of his fur, contrasting his own soft fur.

Long legs fell to the ground where they'd previously been resting atop a large window ledge, only adding to his height and elongating his dark shadow that draped before him and towards Keith like a strange foreshadow for darkness to come to him.

But Keith's own eyes brought themselves up to meet the boy's and they stood still, simply staring. Until the other opened his mouth, revealing pointed canines to say words Keith certainly did not expect him to say:

"Hi, beautiful, the name's Lance McClain."